


not for lack of trying

by weatheredlaw



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, War, World War II, implied parent/child incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I will lose myself as I have lost you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not for lack of trying

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be like a genuine epistolary fic with photoshopped letters but I got hecka lazy so you can have this and h8 me later.

Dear Mr. DeWitt,

I am unsure what carried your letter intended for your former employer to my father's own place of business. Some may call it happenstance, others may call it fate. I am unsure which I believe in less these days, however, I did separate it from the rest of his mail before he could find it. I don't know why, but I felt compelled to keep it from him, as if, maybe, the letter was intended for me to set on its rightful path. You should be happy to know I've sent it to the Pinkerton's. 

I didn't read it, if you were wondering.

My governess suggested I write to you, to perhaps clear up any residual curiousity. She's a curious woman herself, so I think she considers this another little social experiment of some kind. I've sworn her to secrecy from my parents, who I know would not approve of my communicating with a man gone to war. My governess told me that you're stationed in Guadalcanal. You're a brave man, Mr. DeWitt. From what I understand, out there, in the middle of all that ocean, things are quite challenging. To put it lightly, I suppose. In the words of a girl barely brushing fingers with adulthood. I turned nineteen last month, and father still insists on Madame Lutece teaching me grammar and science, instead of a proper college education. Or better yet, signing up myself. I know a great deal about medicine, but he keeps me here, where my talent is wasted.

You're certainly not obligated to write back, and I'm sure any communication we have will be spotty, at best. But it would be nice, don't you think? You'd find my circle of friends is rather strange, if I told you, so I won't. Though you must understand, I am not unhappy, not usually. I just crave something new. Perhaps you do as well.

Sincerely,  
Elizabeth

 

 

Miss Elizabeth,

I appreciate you sending my letter along, and my apologies for replying to you so late. To be honest, I had to talk myself into writing this. War hasn't made me any braver. 

Your governess is right. The boys and I are stationed in Guadalcanal, but that's about all I can tell you. We took it back last November, which is probably why they didn't black that out. Best be careful about what kinds of questions you ask, if letters be your intention. It was certainly a surprise to have my name called when the mail was delivered. Maybe that's why I decided to write back. 

You may be right. I may need something new, though I'm not too sure a nineteen year old penpal is the right choice. Best I don't let any of these boys find out about you. Lord only knows how many long and desperate letters you'll get. They'll spill their guts to any girl with a fixed address. 

I found your first letter to be a comfort, and it's beginning to wear a hole in my pocket. I must have read it a thousand times, even though I'm sure, to you, it seems unremarkable. In the world I'm living in, your words remind me there's some kind of normalcy waiting for me, if I ever do get back.

Sincerely,  
Booker DeWittt

 

 

 

Dear Mr. DeWitt,

Things here are certainly anything but normal. A girl can't walk five feet without being accosted by folks asking her to hock her jewelry for the cause. Mother had a square in the back yard turned into a garden, but never asked the maids to teach her to can anything that grew. She talks a lot about all the things she will do, but in the end, it's only talk. She's not like you. No one seems to be like you. 

Madame Lutece found your own letter to be quite remarkable, though she didn't actually read it. She enjoys your handwriting, particularly your signature. I teased her a bit about you being an eligible bachelor when you came home, but she didn't seem to enjoy that. She's very serious and, I believe, in love. Though it's rather hard to imagine. She told me she would be more than happy to continue delivering your letters to me, so I don't think there's much of a chance of my father finding out. Mother, presumably, could care less. We don't get along either way, but father and I have a strange closeness that gives me both comfort and unease. Looking at him makes one feel as though he's looking right into you, almost beyond you. As if he sees something else. 

I keep talking on and on about myself, but I haven't even bothered to ask you about your own life, so forgive me. Even still, I'm unsure what I want to know. What do you ask a man you barely know to tell you about himself that you won't learn over time? Feel free to ignore the ramblings of a young girl. Mother insists on calling me a woman and tells me it's about time I began thinking about things that other young women my age are thinking about. When she says this, she most certainly means marriage. The thought makes me shudder. 

I must tell you, I can't quite shake the feeling that I should renew my belief in faith. What else could have brought us together? And during such a time as war, Mr. DeWitt. Again, a young girl's ramblings. Please stay safe, of course, and write again soon.

Sincerely,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Miss Elizabeth,

Hearing my name called for letters never quite loses its luster. And your handwriting continues to be a refreshing change to the jagged edges of this island. Your governess sounds like an odd woman, but I'm grateful she's found it in herself to make use of her home address for our correspondence.

I've heard tale of what's happening back home, but home seems too far away to realize. You should know that everyone over here appreciates everything happening over there, even if it's small. It's a nice change to hear stories like those. 

I don't know what I could tell you about myself that would give you any comfort. You know who I was working for, and you seem like a smart girl, so I won't pretend to be a decent man for your sake. The world makes us hard and its cruelty can make a man into something awful. I've done things I'm not proud of, but I suspect you could find out what they are. I've no family to speak of, and I lost my wife almost twenty years ago. I suppose that's the summary of it all, and in writing it down I'm well aware of how small and menial my life must seem to a person like you. 

I would have had a daughter your age, and I already know that if she was half as clever and kind as you, I'd have been a lucky man.

I don't want to cause any trouble between you and your old man. That's not my intention. If you'd prefer for me not to answer your letters, I'd understand. If your connection to him is as strange as you say it is, I'd rather not get in the middle and muddle things up. That tends to be how things go when I get involved in a person's life. War is the only place a man like me belongs, where it's just fine that everything you touch is destroyed. That's what it makes you into, that's all you get from it. 

My intention isn't the frighten you or scare you into never writing again. I suppose I just feel the need to be honest with you, if that makes any sense. Fate isn't in my nature. I typically don't entertain such notions.

But by you, I could be convinced. Maybe you're supposed to teach me kindness. 

Sincerely,  
Booker DeWitt

 

 

 

Dear Mr. DeWitt,

You say it isn't your intention to frighten me off, but you seem to be putting in a good effort. Unfortuantely, you have not succeeded. Elizabeth Comstock fears no one, Mr. DeWitt, not even an old Pinkerton like you. I've certainly done my research on you in between our letters, and I know all about your time with them, relatively speaking. 

I am not afraid of violence. We're living in a world run by violence. Our motivations and intentions are laced with blood and anger. There is nothing in this world I fear, except being alone. And in writing to you, I understand quite clearly that there isn't a chance I could be, so long as I have your words and, of course, the company of my dear governess. My only friend, I suspect. Apart from you.

What a collection of oddities I have, don't you think? An army corporal and a physicist for friends. And a cat, of course, but my dear Songbird is, alas, simply a pet. He cares for no one but me, and even then he's rather tempremental. 

This is probably why father still calls me a child. 

I should have liked to meet your daughter, I suspect. With a father like you, she would have been an endearing companion, I'm sure. I only wonder, did you lose her? Did she die with your wife? Or are there parts of this story I'll simply have to wait to uncover? Indeed, writing to you is like being a part of a grand epic, Mr. DeWitt. You as the hero, myself as the reader. Though I suspect I shall surpass that role in due time. 

Mother has dragged me out into the yard each morning in some kind of attempt to bond over vegetables. It might be working, though she grows very weak in the sun. She won't ever say what ails her, but I know it can't be anything good. Eventually, she retires to the shade and reads while I pull weeds and watch Songbird chase rabbits. Occasionally, everything here feels rather normal, but I know better. I am well aware what kind of world this is, and how much of a guest in it I merely am. 

My own mortality is never as clear to me as it is during wartime. 

I don't want to end a letter like that. Madame Lutece told me to never end my letters to you on a sad note, for I will never know when any one letter will be the last. And look here, I've done it again. Perhaps this is one letter that shall remain morose, Mr. DeWitt. I leave it up to you to brighten our shared reality.

Sincerely,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Miss Elizabeth,

Never feel ashamed for a sad letter. Any letter from you is one worth reading, and it was the most honest thing I've laid eyes on in months. Your letters are the only truth I really have anymore. Everything around us is crumbling, and the boys are desperate for the war to be over. They fight one another, they fight themselves. Sometimes they go to medical and never come back. I've watched more than one lose his mind in a rainstorm. It rains here, for so many days we never know when it'll stop. 

The first time, the boys loved it. An entire group of them from Arizona stood out in it for an hour and nearly caught their death. Told me it'd been years since they'd had a real rain. Now they're just as sick of it as anyone else. We're all sick of this island. To tell you the truth, we're just sick. The coughing never stops, the bleeding never ends, the wounds don't heal right in all this muck and hot, wet air.

You asked me for a happy letter, and I'm afraid I can't give that to you. I tried four times, and nothing came out but nonsense. One of the boys said I should just quote the bible to you, but I'm not too much a God-fearing man, and I couldn't tell him that you weren't my girl, just a girl, though I know you're anything but. 

I have no intention of dying, but then I don't think most men who have died in war ever do. I've lived nearly forty years, I would very much like to live forty more, even if it may not be in the cards for me. It won't be for lack of trying, I promise you that. 

Look, I've gone and made you and promise, Miss Elizabeth. You must be a special girl indeed.

Sincerely,   
Booker DeWitt

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

I've done away with formalities. You're a friend now, and on occasion Madame Lutece does allow me to call her Miss Rosalind, so I suppose it's fair. You're more than welcome to do the same. 

You didn't have to promise me anything, but I guess I'll have to hold you to it, now. A promise is a promise, and I fully expect you to return home. Perhaps you'll even rescue me. 

Father has been supplementing my education with more frequent bible studies. His religious fervor has always been great, but I think he knows that, soon, I will no longer be his little bird. That I will find my own place in this world and leave this one behind. Madame Lutece has been trying to convince him that I should get an education, and mother thinks it's a wonderful idea. Truthfully, I'd be ecstatic to go. To be free from here. Madame Lutece has even offered to be my chaperone, but I don't think this helps my cause, really. Father has always suspected my governess of putting ideas in my head, though I am more than capable of putting them there myself.

I am unsure if I'm a God-fearing woman myself. I suppose I do believe, of course. I've been brought up that way. But one does have to question how merceless is our God if he has allowed this war to go on. Father says trust in his design, but I find his design strangely counterintuitive. My dear father would catch on fire, I'm sure, if he saw these words, but they're just for you and I, Booker. Another secret between us. 

However, I suppose I do believe, and as long as I do, I'll pray for you, and for your boys. For their sanity and their health. It seems to be all a man has over there, and I'm sure they could use a few positive thoughts, even if they're only spoken in private by a silly little girl. 

Sincerely,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Elizabeth,

I'll abandon formalities, if it's what you prefer. Your affection is all I seem to take comfort in these days. 

The rain did finally stop, but other machinations have been set into motion. I can't tell you anything else, but you're clever enough to understand. There's been talk of coming home, but nothing more than that. I think it's just another one of the Fink boys talking crazy talk. Their daddy's a rich man, but it's a pity none of them have as much sense as they've got money. Two of them are stationed in Paris, another two here with us, and they don't make their own lives easy. 

I had hoped Paris would be my station, too, but they pointed me toward the jungle and I haven't been able to find my way out. I'm not sure if I'll be able to really go home when this is all done. New York's lost its luster, and all I've been able to imagine is a flat in Paris. I had one there years ago, but went back home when the money started drying up. Seems like a good place to go back to. It's where I met my wife. 

Reading this over again makes me feel like a fool. I feel like I've overlooked something important and I realized it after I had to put the letter down and come back.

I've overlooked you, Elizabeth. I think coming back and seeing you might be nice. Maybe before Paris I'll do that. Just once. Just for a moment. To put a face and a voice to your words. You've never sent a picture and, truthfully, I don't want one. I can't add your face to the nightmares, Elizabeth. I can't and I won't. Your words are enough. You told me I might come home and rescue you, but there's something you have to understand. All these months, you've been rescuing me. 

Sincerely,  
Booker

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

You say I'm rescuing you, but I have no idea how I'm doing that when, in my own life, everything is falling apart. Mother is sick and father is beginning to spiral. My only physical comfort is Miss Rosalind, who stays longer at the house than she must, and continues to fight my father over my right to go to school. 

And I have you, of course. But I can't touch you, Booker, and I sometimes wonder if I ever will.

Madame Lutece has a brother who is very knowledgeable in new areas of medicine and father has sent for him. She's told me I'll like him a great deal. If he saves my mother, I'm sure I will. But until then, she's dying. Father says she isn't, that God and, perhaps, medicine, can save her, but she and I both know. When she looks at me, the truth of her future is written clearly on her face and I see it in her eyes. 

Last night she called for me to come to her bed and told me there were many truths about my life I didn't know. She told me not to tell my father, but to ask Madame Lutece and her brother when he arrived. She told me that she was sorry for ever holding anything against me, but I don't know what she meant. She began coughing after that and father forced me out. It seems strange, to grow closer to my mother as she slowly edges out of this world. I don't think I've ever told her I loved her more than a few times in my life, but last night I must have said it a dozen times. 

I will be so lonely without her, Booker. She's been an odd buffer between myself and my father, even though I've certainly felt that I loved him more. Again, it's a strange love we have. But the love for my mother has never been complicated. Merely dulled by time and wounds. 

You promised you would try to live. I beg you to keep trying. I beg you to come home to me. How on earth can I rescue you if you die in the mud and rain? What will be the point of you and I then? 

Yours,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

It's been a month without a letter. I'm a patient girl, but when your closest friend is at war, you often wonder if his silence means something greater than forgetfulness. Mother is still sick, father is still suffocating me, and I believe he is trying to make Madame Lutece's brother, Robert, my suitor. Neither of them, nor I, are very pleased. 

I will wait for you, Booker. I will wait for you to come back to me. Don't leave me here in this madhouse of a life I live. Don't.

Yours,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

Another three weeks with no letter. I miss you. I dream about you. I found your photo in the Pinkterton files a week ago, and now I see you everywhere. You were right not to ask for my photograph, and I wish I could undo what I've done. I wish I could forget your face. I wish you would appear on my doorstep. Every knock, every ring of the bell, it makes me sit up straight. Madame Lutece tells me to have faith in what we are. She tells me we are much more than we seem, that we are bound by a single red thread. A red thread of destiny. If you write to me, I will tell you the story, Booker. I will tell you everything.

Yours,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

Neither God nor Robert Lutece could save my mother. She is dead. Father is beside himself. I feared he would smother me when she finally left us, but in fact he has left me out in the cold. I am unsure which I want less. All that I know anymore is that I want you, I want you to be safe, to come home to me. Until then, Madame Lutece and I continue to secure the blessing of my father for my education. I will busy myself otherwise. Pining does not suit me, it makes me look old.

Yours,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

Madame Lutece insists I continue to write as if you are alive, though my letters, I'm sure, lose their luster over time without your dry wit to round them out in response. We have succeeded in our mission. I will be leaving for Barnard in a month's time with both the Lutece's. Father abandoned his brief notion that I could marry Robert after mother died, and I believe he has now abandoned me. 

I know this should be a relief, but I feel more alone than ever, Booker. And your silence from the other side of the world has made this life more unbearable than it has any right to be. I don't know how I'll survive without her, but Madame Lutece has told me that people will come and go like the tide and I must be prepared to weather the storms of solitude. I think, though, she misses you as well. 

She tells me each day, no matter what, that we are bound by this red string. I tell her that I can't believe in red strings anymore than I think I can believe in God. Without your letters, without your messy, childish scrawl, I don't think I believe in anything except myself, and what I am capable of alone. I will lose myself in my studies, Mr. DeWitt. I will lose myself as I have lost you. 

Yours,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Elizabeth,

Your letters have been piling up in the mail room as I recover. I am still on the mend, and I have no regrets except that I couldn't reach you. 

I nearly broke my promise to you. The bullet nearly ripped through my heart, and the infection nearly killed me. The doctors said they brought me back twice. That I'm a stubborn son of a bitch who just wouldn't die. I could only think that I didn't want to break another promise, Elizabeth. I've already broken so many. 

I'm sorry to hear about your mother, and even more sorry that I wasn't there for you. I lost my mother when I wasn't much younger than you. My father had left us when I was a boy, and she worked to keep us afloat, three jobs every week. Two when I was old enough to work on my own. A bad flu took her, and I remember the pain. It will come as no comfort to you, I'm sure, because I am becoming an old man with a fool's mission, and you are a young woman on the cusp of what I assume is greatness. I wouldn't know greatness, not unless I saw you. 

I didn't want to leave you, Elizabeth. I know I must have said your name. The boy in the bed next to me asked who you were, if you were my girl. I didn't know what to tell him. I didn't know what to tell him except that you were never mine, never would be mine, and that if there was a God, he was a cruel one. I don't believe that God sends men anywhere. I became a soldier because it's all I knew. God had nothing to do with it.

Tell me the story of the red string, Elizabeth. And I will come back to you as soon as I can. They say I'm not fit for war anymore, that I'm too old for this nonsense. I believe them. 

Yours,  
Booker

 

 

 

Dear Booker,

The red string ties soulmates to one another at the little finger, which is convenient as I lost of the tip of my pinky some time ago. The red string cannot be broken. It may be tangled or lost, but it connects two people across time and space and worlds. 

Madame Lutece says you and I are connected by the red string. She says it may be what kept you alive. That maybe we have been trying to find one another in every world and this may be the one where we finally get it right. She speaks like this is the truth and she knows, but her face is so sad when she looks at me. I think she still feels my mother's death. I think she misses her own mother, maybe, though she has never spoken of her. Now that her brother is in our lives, she does walk with a bit more spring in her step. They compliment one another quite well, my Lutece's. 

Barnard is lovely. I've never been around so many girls who've read as much as I have. I've decided to study literature and French, because I fully intend to travel to Paris with you upon your return. 

I won't ask you anymore about the bullet that almost took you from me. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know. I just know you're alive, and that's all I can ask for.

Love,  
Elizabeth

 

 

 

Elizabeth:

I am coming home. Ship to Hawaii. Train across the country to New York. Tuesday April 18. Train to arrive at ten AM in the city. 

Booker

 

 

 

My dear brother,

The girl has a sense of duty that rivals your own. I trust you have destroyed the documents in question that would tear her love for the wounded Mr. DeWitt to pieces. There is no need to know the truth, not when she believes so dearly in their bond and his goodness, despite evidence and facts to the contrary. Not to say, though, that Booker DeWitt is a bad man. He is certainly good to the girl, despite their age difference and despite the truth that neither can ever know. 

Her father, Mr. Comstock, has not requested her presence since our departure. I believe he has lost all sight of this world. The loss of Lady Comstock was hard on us all, but especially on her husband. Elizabeth does not mourn the death of their connection as she did her mother. I suspect she is glad for it. She buries herself in her studies. She loses herself with DeWitt. I cannot, in being true to my duty to her, allow them to live together without a proper proposal, and DeWitt believes himself to be unworthy of the girl. If he knew the half of it, he would have died like he should have on that God forsaken island.

As it is, I confuse myself. I detest him for his history, and I adore him for the way he adores the girl. The way he is curious about her studies, understanding that she will always be more clever than he and respecting that. 

They are in love, Robert. Their love deserves to remain ignorant. 

Mr. DeWitt lost his wife and gave up his daughter. Anna became Elizabeth, a DeWitt became a Comstock. In this way, a soldier has become a real man. The truth would destroy them both. So I trust that you have properly destroyed it. 

I wonder how much of this is my fault. Perhaps I knew what I was doing, when I encouraged the girl to write to him. Perhaps I am more than aware of my own machinations. Perhaps I am more a fool than they. Who am I to judge when I can love no other man but you? Maybe I am jealous. You and I cannot be together, but DeWitt and Elizabeth can. They are ignorant where we are wise. They are blissful where we are pained. 

It matters not. The girl is happy. That is all I have ever wanted for her. 

Your loving sister,  
Rosalind


End file.
